


Give Me a Moment (and let me pretend)

by Toadflame



Series: Young Blood Lives (AH GTA AU) [1]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - GTA, Gen, M/M, One-Sided Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-03 02:19:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2834588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toadflame/pseuds/Toadflame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'And in the end, I'd do it all again, because you're my best friend.  But don't you know the kids aren't alright?'</p><p>Two days after Michael’s death on the job, Ray books a one-way ticket out of the Los Santos airport, packs up the few things he thinks he’ll need, and high-tails it out of the city.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Give Me a Moment (and let me pretend)

**Author's Note:**

> GTA AU based on a conversation with K (because that's how they all start). Apologies because I did write this very late last night and this morning, and while I went through it there may still be a few things I missed.
> 
> If you feel brave, listen to [The Kids Aren't Alright](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WR7U7_cKJw4) by Fall Out Boy while reading. While this is not based on the song (I actually listened to [Short Hair](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MilR3Z1sASY) from the Mulan soundtrack while writing this), it's a perfect song for this fic.

He moves back to Liberty City.

Two days after Michael’s death on the job, Ray books a one-way ticket out of the Los Santos airport, packs up the few things he thinks he’ll need, and high-tails it out of the city.  He nearly steals a plane, but figures that in the long run it’ll be better if he just does it the legal way.

Besides, he doesn’t have anywhere to put _himself_ , let alone a plane.  Plus, fuel and everything that goes with it.  That gets expensive fast.

Only problem with suddenly leaving: he has nowhere to go.  He and Michael had moved to Los Santos nearly a year and a half ago, and it’s expensive to keep up two apartments.  Ray gets off the plane, coughs once he steps out into the smog-filled city (so different from Los Santos; for one, the amount of dirt and grime coating the city.  If Los Santos was a gilded prison, Liberty City is a dank cell), and thinks on who he can bother for a few nights.

He ends up sleeping on top of his duffle in an alley the first night, with only the stray cats for company and a gun in his hand.  It’s not the best sleep he’s gotten, but somehow, he’s also had worse.  It’s also still better than trying for a hotel; this close to the airport, they’re all going to be packed.

The second day, he sets off downtown and aims for an old friend from their time with the mafia in Liberty City.  He has to throw a bit of his weight around, grease the man’s palm a bit, but he gets a room for a few days.  It’s more than enough time for him to venture around the city, refamiliarize himself with the people and the layout, and get in touch with his former landlord.

Amazingly, the apartment he and Michael had is available.

Two days after that, he’s set up again in the apartment.  Everything is the same, down to the two holes punched into the wall.  One from Michael after the first assassination attempt against them.

One from Ray after the first (nearly) successful attempt at actually _killing_ Michael, from some low-life member of the family who thought that killing the explosives expert would get him somewhere.

Ray doesn’t do anything for the next two days, doesn’t even leave his apartment.  He’d barely remembered to actually buy food for the time he’d be spending in his apartment, and had grabbed whatever instant, probably-not-good-for-you food he could find.  His Xbox, one of the more prized of his possessions, had been shipped out and arrived at the old P.O. box he’d thankfully kept up with (and it wasn’t a surprise that there was a bag of junk mail the post office had kept for him).  So at least he had that.

The third day after he moves back into the apartment, five days after he made it back to Liberty City, there’s a knock on his door.

Ray’s in yesterday’s sweatpants, hair tousled and eyes droopy from a night with no sleep.  He opens the door barely a crack before it’s shoved wide open, and he’s thrown into the wall.

It’s obviously on accident, and Geoff Ramsey standing in his doorway with an unreadable look (and it pains Ray to realize that he should’ve been able to tell what the man was thinking) was not what he expected at 7 in the morning with no sleep.

“Dude,” he says, and indignation sweeps over him.  “ _Dude_ , that was my front door and this is my apartment.”

“I know.”  Geoff’s immaculate, dressed to the nines in a suit and tie.  His shoes sparkle, a feat since Ray would swear that the apartment stairwell hasn’t been cleaned since long before even he started living here with Michael.  The street outside isn’t much better.  “Why do you think I’m here?”

Ray doesn’t have a good answer, and Geoff doesn’t seem to expect him to have one.  Instead, he looks around and scowls at the apartment.  “You’ve let this place go down, man, it’s only been three days!”

“I’m amazed at the fact that you have so much faith in me,” he somehow says wittily, and then Geoff’s in his kitchen staring into the cupboards.

“There’s no food in here,” he says, and Ray’s affronted almost immediately.  “Nothing worth eating, I should say,” he corrects as soon as Ray’s ready to yell.

“There’s...crackers,” he says, and just to prove it he takes out a sleeve of said crackers, opens it, and crunches into one.  It tastes like dirt, and it’s a lot of effort to actually swallow it.

It doesn’t take long before Geoff declares that Ray’s apartment is a disaster area and drags him out into one of the more ‘reputable’ districts (if anything in Liberty City could be called reputable).  Geoff doesn’t bat an eye when Ray throws long-term food like macaroni and cheese, box dinners, and single-serve food packs into the cart, but he also forces vegetables (of all the things, _fucking vegetables_ , Ray thinks, then flinches away from that thought when he remembers that _Michael_ was the one who remembered the vegetables), fruit, and whatever-the-fuck-else into the cart.  Ray doesn’t even pay attention.

They stop at a hardware store for stuff to fix the wall on the way back, and Geoff walks in alone.  Ray sits in the car and tries not to let out a sob at the thought of taking away anything of Michael from the apartment.

Food is stocked in his cupboards and fridge, the plaster to fix the wall (and paint that Ray is sure won’t really match but he can’t bring himself to care at all) is sitting next to the wall, and Ray has managed to convince Geoff not to fill in the holes.  He doesn’t explain why.

When he wakes up the next morning, shuffled off into Michael’s old bedroom (the only one he’d brought himself to actually make habitable again), there’s eggs on the table and the paint and plaster is gone.

When Geoff’s not looking, later, he walks over and stares at the spots where the holes used to be and can’t remember where they were.

\- - - - -

Geoff leaves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

Ray doesn’t really want him to go, no matter that this is the same man who hadn’t trusted Ray, had put Michael into danger and didn’t get him back out (Ray forces himself to breathe when that puts him back into a panicky mode).  This is the man who chased Ray across a _country_ to make sure he was okay when his best-friend-but-not-quite-more was killed, and who actually forced him to take care of himself, at least a little.

Of course Ray wants him to stay for a little while longer.

Intellectually, he knows better.  Geoff _runs_ a city, he can’t stay forever in another city thousands of miles away where the only reason he’s known is because of his name but not his deeds.  Liberty City can handle Geoffrey Ramsey, but Geoffrey Ramsey can’t stay in Liberty City.

Emotionally, well.  Ray’s never been good at emotions, and doesn’t really want to start now.  He at least goes with to see Geoff off at the airport.

Just before he gets in line for security, and Ray has to turn around and leave, Geoff stops him.  He slides an envelope into his pocket.

“Taxi money and a little gift from me to you,” he says when Ray asks.  “You’ll know when to use it.”

Those are the last words Ray hears from Geoff before he bundles himself off into the security line, and they rattle around his head on the way back to the apartment.

The slip of paper gets shoved into a random drawer in the kitchen, and there’s a new hole in the wall where Ray thinks ( _hopes_ ) the one from Michael was.

It doesn’t take long after Geoff leaves until the mafia comes calling.

Ray’s been expecting it, knew that when he’d stayed with that ‘old friend’ they’d know he was alive.  First it’s a letter stuck into his P.O. box the morning after Geoff’s gone.  Ray doesn’t ask where they got his address; they’d never told anyone what the number was while they were still with the family, but they also hadn’t gotten a new one after they’d left.  He decides he doesn’t care anyway, and throws the letter into the trash without reading it.

Next it’s a courier out on the street, nervously whispering despite the fact that they’re in broad daylight and would draw far more attention than him just shouting it to the skies.

Then it’s a housecall, and how the knew he was in the same apartment he doesn’t want to know (if Geoff Ramsey could find out from all the way across the fucking country, he knows they could find him when he lives in the same city).  The man they send doesn’t look very threatening when they talk, but the gun Ray can see tucked into the waistband of the man’s pants when he turns to leave is more than enough to convince him that he can handle himself.

Finally, they just resort to kidnapping him.

He’s mildly disappointed that he doesn’t even warrant a bag on his head.  He’s walking down the street aimlessly (distantly, he feels like he should get a job of some sort, to keep up on rent, but that seems like a lot of energy he doesn’t really want to expend right now) and then there’s a car pulled up next to him.  The window rolls down, and a really tall man steps out from the backseat.

“Really?” he asks as they push him in.  “You know, if you’d have just said ‘get in’, I probably would have.”

“This way, we ensure you will,” the man in the front says as they drive off.

The house is the same as he remembers, a good-sized mansion settled nicely into uptown Algonquin that hides the fact that the mafia works from within the cultural epicenter of Liberty City.

The family head sits in her chair, pen in hand and writing when they come in.  She looks up at them and takes off her glasses, leaning back.  Red hair fans against the back of the chair, and for a moment Ray thinks she looks really pretty.

“This is the third message you’ve received,” she says.  Ray forgets that Meg Turney’s voice sounds like it should belong to a pop star, not the head of a mafia.  “Why haven’t you answered?”

“Don’t you mean fourth?” he counters.  She arches a delicate eyebrow, and he realizes that one of the messages was fake.  Probably the letter, he thinks, and suddenly wonders what it really said.

“I’ll cut to the chase quickly.  We know your partner’s not here, and while we don’t know where he is-” She looks very sour at that- “we do have use of your own...talents, shall we say.  We could have use of you again.  Along with a nice, steady paycheck to keep that old apartment of yours.  If you’re _interested_ , of course.  No pressure.”

Ray notices that she doesn’t say anything about them faking their deaths just to get out.

“Ms. Turney, I…” he stops, considering the terms.  There’s a slight nudge at the small of his back, and he can tell it’s the muzzle of a revolver.   _Choose carefully_ , it says.  “I don’t know how I could say no.”

Meg Turney smiles.  Ray tries not to think of how creepy it looks.

\- - - - -

He doesn’t think of the next few months of work as hard.

It’s mostly setting an explosion here or there, quietly sniping down an enemy a few times a week, and it’s cheap work, but there’s enough that he can pay for his apartment’s rent and food.  While he’s working, he doesn’t let himself think about Michael; when he gets back each night, it’s videogames until fuck o’clock in the morning when he passes out on the couch.  His back has never ached more.

There’s rumors on the streets, of course.  One week, it was that he and Michael were going to try two-timing the family again.  Ray always snorts at that one because they never two-timed them in the first place.

Another week, it’s that there were never two of them, just one, and now he’s back without the fake second person.  He only let a few tears slip out when he heard that one, and punched anyone who tried to ask if they really were one or had there actually been two?

Almost a year after Michael’s death, Ray hears another influx of rumors.  Of course, they’re different depending on who you talk to, but otherwise they’re all the same: that the police, ones not enchanted by the Turney family, are onto the family and are gonna bust it down.

Ray doesn’t know if this is what Geoff meant when he said that he’d know when to use the number.

It takes him a week of searching through dirty dishes piled up on the counter and nothing where it should be before he finds it.

He dials, expecting someone from the crew to answer.  Instead, it’s an apartment complex.  Ray hangs up, again and again, the more he dials it.

Finally, _finally_ , when the rumors are spreading that they’re taking in people who hang on the family’s coattails, when the fear sets in that he might be next, Ray stays on the line.

Jack meets him at the airport three days later.

It’s not emotional, but Ray can’t even pass off that there’s something in his eye when he stops in front of Jack.  How they knew he was flying out, when he’d arrive, he has no idea, but Jack’s waiting with a sign with his name on it, and without prompting the man gives him a huge hug the moment he comes close.

Talk between them while Jack drives them through the streets is minimal, and Ray mostly stares out the window as they pass Los Santos and her skyscrapers.  They go right past what Ray thinks (knows, because he followed Michael too many times down it) is the street to go to the crew’s headquarters, and drives right past his new apartment on the way out of town.

Jack doesn’t say a word when he asks, just says that there’s one place they need to go first.

They drive up into Blaine County, not so far that they leave trees for desert, but far enough that Ray doesn’t really know where they are.  They pull off onto a dirt road, and the path winds as they continue.

Ray doesn’t notice it, not at first, not until Jack pulls to a stop in front of the tiny little cemetery.  He can’t even bring himself to ask what this is about now, just gets out of the car and nearly stumbles as he walks between the few gravestones.

Jack leads him towards an ash tree near the far end, and Ray looks at the headstone carefully placed under the wide branches.  It’s dark, dark granite, so black it shimmers purple with the light, with white lettering standing out starkly in contrast.

A shaking hand reaches out, tracing the letters in the air without touching the headstone.

_Ray Narvaez, Jr._

_1989-2014_

He falls to his knees, but he’s not Ray anymore, he’s Michael, he’s Michael and he’s just been confronted with his own reality.  That he wasn’t Ray, has never been Ray, because Ray was buried in the ground under his knees in what should have been _Michael’s_ casket.

 


End file.
